Dutch fans add international flavour to Doncaster Rovers’ match today

Lee Peace

A group of Dutch football fans are set to add a bit of international flavour to Doncaster when they attended Rovers’ home match against Yeovil Town today.

The 28 men and women made the trip over from their home city in Rotterdam to visit the Keepmoat Stadium.

The group of friends regularly pick random football games to attend in England - and this time it was Rovers’ turn.

Group organiser Jeroen Koot, 41, a telecom company worker, said: “We make day trips with the Rotterdam-Hull ferry. So we get a few hours in England. Only clubs in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire are doable for a match.

“And so we tick them all off. We started in York, via Sheffield and Lincoln before going to Doncaster this time.”

He added that most of the group are Feyenoord fans and they hatched their plan to see more football matches overseas while following their team around Europe in the Champions League.

Mr Koot said: “Most of us are Feyenoord-fans. Some of them I know for many years now. A few others I met in Prague where Feyenoord had to play for the Champions League. When we saw each other again in Milan a friendship was born.

“We have made this kind of trip since 2010. We started to make these trips as a replacement for European away days with our own team. I’ve seen more than 800 matches in total during my life. In England somewhere between 35-40 matches and I’ve been to 30 grounds in England.

“With this group it will be the eighth visit to England. We started with the 10 of us and now we are with 28 coming over.”

But don’t expect to see the group in full orange colours, reminiscent of the thousands of fans who follow the national team at World Cups and European Championships.